Research Group on Plant Biology under Mediterranean Conditions, Biology Department, University of Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain.
Fakultät für Biologie, Chemie und Geowissenschaften, Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Sep 10;786:147391. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147391. Epub 2021 Apr 29.
Herbivory of insular plant communities by introduced animals has been widely studied for decades. Though their diet mainly includes palatable and highly nutritive species, goats will also eat plants that are toxic to other animals. Thus, severe affection of toxic species may indicate high herbivore pressure or a low quality of vegetative food. To evaluate whether herbivory damage to low-palatability shrubs could give us information about feral goat pressure on vegetation, we assessed the predation impact of feral goats on the shrub Euphorbia dendroides (Euphorbiaceae) on Mallorca Island (Spain). We aimed to investigate whether goats consume juvenile E. dendroides and affect their population structure and determine if the plants increase the concentrations of toxic compounds as an adaptation to herbivory. Overall, two experimental plots and analysis of eleven natural populations indicated E. dendroides is affected by ungulates and that the population structure change with the presence of feral goats. Euphorbia dendroides could be used as an ecological indicator to determine the extent of ungulate damage to vegetation or indicate poor food availability, and thus inform the maintenance of optimal animal populations. Depending on the management objective for the territory, E. dendroides could be used as an ecological indicator to determine the extent of ungulate damage to vegetation or indicate poor food availability for animals, and thus inform the maintenance of optimal animal populations.
几十年来，人们广泛研究了岛屿植物群落中引入动物的食草作用。尽管它们的饮食主要包括美味且营养丰富的物种，但山羊也会食用对其他动物有毒的植物。因此，有毒物种的严重影响可能表明食草动物的压力较高或植物性食物的质量较低。为了评估对低适口性灌木的食草损害是否能为我们提供关于野生动物山羊对植被压力的信息，我们评估了野生山羊对马略卡岛（西班牙）灌木 Euphorbia dendroides（大戟科）的捕食影响。我们旨在调查山羊是否会消耗幼年的 E. dendroides 并影响其种群结构，并确定植物是否会增加有毒化合物的浓度作为对食草的适应。总体而言，两个实验区和对十一个自然种群的分析表明，E. dendroides 受到有蹄类动物的影响，种群结构随野生山羊的存在而发生变化。E. dendroides 可作为生态指标，用于确定食草动物对植被的破坏程度或指示动物食物供应不足，并为维持最佳动物种群提供信息。根据该地区的管理目标，E. dendroides 可用作生态指标来确定食草动物对植被的破坏程度，或指示动物食物供应不足，并为维持最佳动物种群提供信息。
